The voyage down the winding stream to an Indian village, where Venango now stands, a distance of one hundred and thirty miles, was full of peril and suffering. The stream, swollen by wintry rains, was in some places a roaring torrent. Again it broke over rocks, or was encumbered by rafts of drifting timber, around which the canoe and all its freight had to be carried. Several times all had to leap into the icy water, to rescue the buoyant and fragile boat from impending destruction. At one place they carried the canoe over a neck of land a quarter mile in extent.
Soon after leaving Venango they found their progress so slow that Major Washington and Mr. Gist clothed themselves in Indian walking dresses, and with heavy packs on their backs, and each with a gun in his hand, set out through the woods on foot. They directed their course, by the compass, so as to strike the Alleghany river just above its confluence with the Monongahela.
This was indeed a weary and perilous journey to take, with the rifle upon the shoulder, the pack upon the back, and the hatchet suspended at the waist. With the hatchet, each night a shelter was to be constructed, should fierce gales or drenching rain render a shelter needful. With the rifle, or the fish-hook, their daily food was to be obtained. In the pack they carried their few cooking utensils and their extra clothing.
Washington’s suspicions that there might be attempts to waylay him were not unfounded. Some Indians followed his trail, either instigated to it by the French, or of their own accord for purposes of plunder. A solitary Indian met him, apparently by accident, in a very rough and intricate part of the way, and offered his service as a guide. Through the day they journeyed together very confidingly. The Indian’s sinews seemed to be made of iron, which nothing could tire. He led Washington and his companion along a very fatiguing route, until nightfall. Then, apparently supposing that, in their exhaustion, if one were shot the other would be helpless and could be followed and shot down at his leisure, he took deliberate aim, it is said, at Washington and fired, at a distance of not more than fifteen paces. The ball barely missed its target. The Indian sprang into the woods. Indignation gave speed to the feet of his pursuers. He was soon caught. The companion of Washington urged that the savage should immediately be put to death. But Washington recoiled from the idea of shooting a man in cold blood. Having disarmed the assassin, he turned him adrift in the wilderness.[22]
It was a cold December night. As it was thought not impossible that the Indian might have some confederates near, they pressed forward, through all the hours of darkness until the morning dawned, taking special care to pursue such a route that even savage sagacity could not search out their trail. They pressed on until they reached the Alleghany river but a short distance from its mouth. The whole region was then a silent wilderness. There were no signs of civilized or even of savage life to be seen. Though the broader streams were not yet frozen over, the banks of the rivers were fringed with ice, and immense solid blocks were floating down the rapid currents. It was necessary to cross the stream before them. With “one poor hatchet,” Washington writes, it took them a whole day to construct a suitable raft. The logs were bound together by flexible boughs and grape vines. It was necessary to be very careful; for should the logs, from the force of the waves or from collision with the ice, part in the middle of the stream, they would be plunged into the icy river, and death would be almost inevitable.
They mounted the raft early in the morning, having finished it the night before, and with long setting poles endeavored to push their way across the whirling, swollen torrent. A piercing December wind swept the black waters. When about half-way across, the raft encountered a pack of floating ice. Washington’s pole became entangled in the mud at the bottom of the river, and the raft was violently whirled around. One of the withes, which bound the logs together, parted; the raft was broken into fragments, and the occupants were plunged into the stream. The water was ten feet deep. Both were, for a moment, entirely submerged. Rising to the surface they clung to the floating logs. Fortunately, just below there was a small island, to which they were speedily floated.
Here, drenched and freezing, they took shelter. Their powder, carefully protected, had not been wet. Despairingly they had clung to their guns. As soon as possible, as the island was well wooded, they constructed a shelter from the gale, and built a roaring fire. Its genial warmth reanimated them, so that they could even enjoy the wintry blasts which swept fiercely by. But before they had reared their shelter and built their fire, Mr. Gist’s hands and feet were frost-bitten.
It is surprising with what rapidity men experienced in wood-craft will rear a camp, enclosed on three sides and open on one, which, roofed and sheathed with overlapping bark, will afford an effectual shelter from both wind and rain. Such a cabin, carpeted with bear-skins or with the soft and fragrant boughs of the hemlock, with a grand fire crackling in front, and a duck, a wild turkey, or cuts of tender venison roasting deliciously before it, presents a scene of comfort which, to the hungry and weary pioneer, is often truly luxurious. He would not exchange it for the most gorgeously furnished chambers in palatial abodes.
Our adventurers, accustomed to such mishaps, regarded their cold bath rather in the light of a joke. They piled the fuel, in immense logs, upon the camp fire; for on the torrent-encircled island they had no fear of being attacked by the savages. They dried their clothing, cooked and ate their savory supper, and, wrapped in their blankets, laid down and slept as sweetly, probably, as if they had been occupants of the guest chamber at Mount Vernon.
The dawn of the next morning revealed to them the fact that the night had been one bitterly cold; for the whole stream was firmly frozen over. They crossed the remaining channel on the ice to the eastern shore. Hence they continued their journey home, over the wide range of the Alleghanies. Without any remarkable incident occurring, they safely reached Williamsburg, then the capital of Virginia, on the 16th of January, 1754, having been absent eleven weeks. Washington seemed to be the only man who was unconscious that he had performed a feat of remarkable skill and daring.